


this place is a shelter

by agetwellcard



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon Divergence - Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, also plums, and steve gives bucky a haircut, and they cook together, basically they're cute and domestic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 08:17:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7040494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agetwellcard/pseuds/agetwellcard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Living with Bucky reminds Steve of the way it feels to jump to action, natural and exhilarating and almost like it was something he was always meant to do.</p><p>Aka, the one where there is no one after them so Steve and Bucky live together in the apartment in Bucharest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this place is a shelter

They never leave that apartment in Bucharest.

Instead, after Bucky comes back with a plastic bag of plums, Steve flipping through his journal, they resign to looking each other up and down for a long moment. Steve’s half expecting Bucky to jump at him, like it’s a reflex to seeing his face. He doesn’t, though, and stands still, forehead creased as he stares at him.

Eventually, Steve has to ask the question he’s not sure if he wants to know, “Do you know me?”

Bucky stares. “You’re Steve,” he supplies indifferently. “I read about you in a museum.”

Steve’s not sure if he should be happy by this answer or not.

***

He stays.

Not because Bucky ask, or really not even because Steve asks, but because neither of them wants the other to leave. It’s never admitted out loud, but it’s obvious. And that’s enough.

Bucky’s apartment is dirty and the kitchen faucet doesn’t work and the mattress on the ground looks like he’s pulled it out of a back-alley. He would say that the place looks abandoned, but it’s likely it was when Bucky found it.

It’s not exactly the Avengers Tower, but Steve thinks maybe it could be better than that. Instead of the cold, impersonal touches that felt like a hotel, Bucky has things scattered about, from old chocolate bar wrappers to books with library stickers on them. Steve hates to admit it, but something about the apartment feels more like home than the Avengers Towers could ever feel.

On the first night, Steve catches Bucky surreptitiously straitening things up, like he can make the place look even a little livable, but Steve stops him with a casual, “You like it here?”

Bucky blinks at him, hands stilling as they stack books next to his mattress. “Yes,” he says after a moment. He doesn’t look like he’s going to say more, but Steve keeps watching him, practically makes him keep going. “There’s a farmer’s market down the road,” he says. This is enough of a reason to like it for him.

Steve’s eyes flicker over to the plastic bag with two plums in it.

“I’m trying them,” Bucky explains, and then reaches into the bag and pulls one out. “I don’t remember if I like plums.”

Steve’s about to open his mouth but keeps himself from saying anything. Instead, he watches as Bucky disappears to the bathroom for a minute and then comes back with water dripping down his hands and the fruit. He moves a cup of water and a bowl from the free space next to the stovetop to put the plum down and then grabs one of the two knives in the block next to the sink. He proceeds to cut it with careful precision down the middle and then again with the pieces.

His eyes flash up to Steve before he tries one of the pieces, as if he’s not sure about having an audience, but Steve can’t help but to keep watching. When he does bring it to his lips, chewing contemplatively, his face scrunches up, immediately grabbing for the cup of water as he makes a disgusted noise. Steve can’t help the small smile that springs on his lips, or the way it grows to a full-blown toothy grin when Bucky murmurs, “I don’t like plums.”

Steve grabs a piece and pops it into his mouth, trying to hide how wide he’s smiling, nearly laughing.

Bucky notices, though, and gives him another careful look. “You knew?”

“Knew what?” Steve asks, playing dumb.

“That I didn’t like plums.”

Steve shrugs. “Kind of.”

“Kind of” is perhaps a bit passive. He remembers the two of them young and happy, plucking plums off a tree in one of the parks they used to frequent, the warm summer sun above them as they bit into them like apples. He remembers the look on Bucky’s face, the exaggerated disgust as he spit it out on the grass, Steve doubled-over in laughter as he threw the plum down with it.

He realizes that Bucky doesn’t remember any of this.

“You should have told me,” he says. “You could save me a lot of time.”

It sounds like enough of an invitation for Steve to settle into the sofa and go, “So what do you do around here?”

***

It turns out that Bucky only has a handful of things he does. Or at least a handful of things he’s willing to tell Steve about.

Steve takes the couch the first night, sleeping soundly until he wakes up to the sounds of Bucky walking around the apartment. He rubs at his eyes when he sits up, blearily finding Bucky in the kitchen, back turned as he looks through the refrigerator. He’s in the same jacket as yesterday, long hair pulled behind his ears with a baseball hat on.

“Are you going somewhere?” Steve asks, making Bucky jump a little and twist around.

He keeps his mouth open for a few seconds before going, “I have an overdue library book.”

“I’m coming with you.”

Bucky doesn’t seem to object to this when he nods once.

“I need a shower first.”

The bathroom is more maintained than Steve would’ve expected. He can’t exactly imagine Bucky on his hands and knees, scrubbing at the tile of the shower, but it looks clean when Steve glances at it wearily before stepping in. He uses Bucky’s shampoo, some two-in-one off-brand that is good enough for now. When he switches the spray off, fumbling for the neatly folded towel Bucky had awkwardly thrust at him, he realizes that since he didn’t pack anything, he has to wear the clothes from before.

The steam from his shower follows him when he walks out to find Bucky on the couch, flipping through a wide book. Steve catches just a glimpse of it before he closes it sharply, the black and white photo of a few soldiers with guns at their sides looking indifferently to the camera. Something about World War II is on the cover but Steve doesn’t ask about it, but instead goes, “We’re going to have to go to the store, too.”

The weather is a little chilly outside, the slight wind rustling his wet hair that slips out of his baseball cap. Through his dark aviators, Steve takes in Bucharest. Its people, its buildings, its sky above them, a cold grey color.

They walk in silence before Steve finally asks, “You have a library card?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Bucky says, like it’s obvious. “Don’t you? You should see all the stuff they offer now.”

Steve smiles, only a little and nods. “I do have one.”

“Good.”

With a soft smile to the lady working, Bucky returns the books at the circulation desk and then wanders around. Steve stays near, but watches from afar mostly, eyes flitting over the different titles and then back to Bucky. He rounds the corner of a bookshelf to see Bucky pulling a book out and reading the back of it, his dark hair slipping from behind his ears and into his face. Steve watches for a moment longer until Bucky pushes the strands behind his ear again, and then Steve’s turning away, a frown setting on his face.

He never imagined he’d see Bucky in this world, the world where everything is new and unfamiliar. Bucky is the one exception now. He’s more familiar than anyone could be in this world to Steve.

Bucky checks out three thick books, all with non-fiction stickers on the spines, and even gives Steve a glance before handing over his library card, as if to ask if he has anything he wants to add. With his books tucked under his arm, they head to the store where Bucky follows Steve around this time.

Steve scans the aisles for random things he might need, like a toothbrush or a pack of white tees, and carelessly adds them to his basket, banking on the hope that his card works internationally. Bucky has a basket, too, but he is much more careful about what he places into it.

Steve wants to offer to pay for the things Bucky has, but can’t quite figure out how to make the gesture smooth and careless, so he doesn’t. Instead, the cashier talks to Steve in Romanian until she must see how blank and confused he looks and switches to a broken English, words heavy with a thick accent. The card works thankfully, and then Steve watches Bucky check out, talking quietly in a language that Steve doesn’t understand.

Despite how foreign his words sound, Steve watches and recognizes the kid he knew from his childhood. The kindness with the smile Bucky gives her makes him feel like he’s back in the corner store in Brooklyn, Bucky buying a pack of cigarettes and unconsciously charming the cashier.

He never thought it would be impossible to find that Bucky he once knew, but he has had his doubts. The small smile on Bucky’s face makes Steve believe that there is a happy ending to this story, though.

***

Bucky was never good at cooking.

It had always been enough for him, or for Steve to add a few spices and then grin and bear it because he’s hungry and at least Bucky tried. This is why when he wakes up from a nap that he fell into when Bucky had started into one of his books, he bemusedly watches as Bucky works in the kitchen.

He’s chopping potatoes into chunks, that same look of determination and carefulness on his face as he does it. Next to the cutting board, there are already carrots and celery in two piles. Steve stands up, rounding the couch to watch as Bucky’s eyes glance up at him in meeting, and then back down as he shovels the carrots and celery into the pot of boiling water on the stove.

“Buck,” Steve says. “You’re supposed to put the potatoes in first. They cook slower.”

Bucky’s shoulders drop. “Oh.”

“It’s no big deal. Here,” Steve tells him, picking up the knife next to the cutting board and cutting the potatoes into smaller wedges. Afterwards, he hands the board to Bucky, for him scrape the potatoes into the water.

“What are you making?” Steve asks as he peers into the pot.

Bucky automatically goes, “Soup.”

“Oh,” Steve hums. “But you got some sort of stock, right?”

Bucky blinks at him. “Stock?”

“You know, like chicken or vegetable stock.”

It’s clear that Bucky didn’t even think of this. He stammers out, “I knew – I just. I _forgot_. “

Steve sees the way Bucky’s whole face falls, desperately looking to the pot like maybe he can fix it somehow. It makes Steve terrible for even pointing it out, and figures they probably could’ve just eaten it as it was and Bucky would’ve been none the wiser, but now he just has Bucky dejectedly staring at it.

“It’s fine,” Steve assures him. “We’ll just drain the water. Eat the vegetables.”

Bucky nods tersely, the two of them quiet until they’ve scooped out the vegetables and divided them up on two plates. They stand in the kitchen eating awkwardly, and Steve has to say something. “So,” he mutters. “What do you keep in the journal?”

From what Steve had seen when he flipped through it, before he put it down on the counter, it was just random scribbles, most of which he couldn’t even make out. And the picture of himself, which he had definitely not missed.

Bucky looks a bit perturbed by this question, so Steve quickly offers, “I had one too, when I first woke up. Wrote down things people told me to check out.”

“Yeah, I have some of that,” Bucky then says.

Steve waits, for maybe more of an explanation to the rest of it but it becomes clear he’s not going to further elaborate. He clears his throat before going, “You’ve been on the internet, though, right?”

Bucky nods, the hint of a smile on his lips. “Yes.”

“Pretty crazy,” Steve rambles. “Kind of wish it was around when we were still in Brooklyn. Would’ve been a lot easier figuring things out if I could’ve just Googled everything.”

Now he is smiling. “Like when I had to teach you how to sew.”

“I could’ve figured it out on my own,” Steve protests, laughing. He doesn’t even question how Bucky remembers this. He just accepts it because the feeling of someone remembering something from _before_ , it makes him feel incredibly happy, like when he used to talk to Peggy, the two of them conjuring up their pasts together. He tries not to think about the pang in his chest that he feels when he thinks of her.

“It took you three days.”

Steve smiles. “I wanted to make sure I got it right.” They stand in a comfortable silence as they finish eating, but Steve still has to ask, “So, you’re remembering things?”

(It was only the other day when Steve had stood across from him and asked Bucky why he had pulled him from the river and was only met with the quiet, “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do,” Steve had to said to him.

Bucky had given him a long look, eyes hard on his, not saying a word. Steve could tell that he was right, that he had to be.)

Now, Bucky shifts uncomfortably, eyes staring down at his empty plate. “Kind of. I still have my memories they’re just – It’s just hard.”

Steve nods and then collects their plates and puts them in the sink stacked on top of each other’s, the forks clattering loudly when he drops them in.

***

Living with Bucky reminds Steve of the way it feels to jump to action, natural and exhilarating and almost like it was something he was always meant to do. The apartment is small but they make it enough, Steve casually cleaning it up while Bucky makes dinner or writes quickly in his notebook, the pages mostly still a mystery to Steve.

Bucky is quiet around him, but in certain moments will show his cards, smiling and saying something that reminds Steve of who he used to know. Steve’s not sure if he’ll ever be the Bucky he knew in Brooklyn, but it doesn’t matter to him anymore. As long as he’s still here, for Steve to be with and joke with and eat with. It’s enough.

***

Bucky gets nightmares.

The first time it happens, a loud yell that jolts Steve from his sleep, Steve whips up from the couch and scrambles to kneel beside Bucky. He’s sitting up, his head in his hands, breathing heavy and loud. Steve places a hand on his shoulder, which only startles him, and goes, “ _Bucky_.”

“I’m fine,” he assures Steve.

“ _Bucky_ ,” he repeats. It’s enough to get him to look up, face drenched with sweat and miserable looking, eyes glassy and nearly brimming. “It’s okay.”

He swallows thickly, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “It was just a dream.”

Steve knows it’s never _just a dream_. He’s had his fair share of nightmares and knows exactly how real they can feel and how hard they can hit when you wake up.

“It’s over now,” he tells him.

He wants to ask what it was about but knows better than to do that. He’s resolutely realized that it’s unlikely he’ll ever know of all the all the horrors Bucky went through during his time with HYDRA and he doesn’t want to dig because he’s mostly scared to know.

“It’ll never be,” Bucky says dejectedly.

Steve’s hands curl to fists at this, stomach aching cruelly when he hears it. The unfairness of the situation makes Steve furious. Bucky doesn’t deserve this. Steve feels helpless. He rarely ever feels helpless.

They sit in silence, Bucky’s breathing slowing down and Steve’s anger slowly but surely draining out of him until he’s sitting slack, eyes wandering over Bucky’s emotionless face.

“Do you remember the first time we got drunk?” Bucky asks then.

Steve stares for a beats, confusion turning into a sparking joyful feeling in his chest. “Yeah, of course,” he says. “I puked all over the living room floor.”

Bucky smiles, lips curled up in satisfaction and happiness that Steve feels like he hasn’t seen in decades. But maybe that’s because he hasn’t.

“Your whole apartment smelled like whiskey for weeks.”

Steve laughs at this, his throat suddenly feeling less thick. “It was terrible.”

Bucky laughs too and they sit for a few moments with dumb smiles on their faces, like they’re still drunk and telling exaggerated stories to each other as they laid on the floor together.

“I remembered that yesterday,” Bucky explains. “I’ve remember a lot of things since you’ve been here.”

“I’m glad I can help.”

“There’s a lot to remember.”

“I know.”

They sit as they are for a few more minutes until Steve mutters, “Move over,” and Bucky does just that, letting Steve slip under the thin blanket. They turn their backs to each other, but Steve can still feel his body heat and hear his shallow breathing and something about it makes him feel safer than he has in a long time.

***

Steve buys a radio alarm clock.

He buys it more for the radio function than the alarm, since they don’t technically need to be anywhere (something that has been hard to sink in for Steve, who has felt like he’s constantly been torn away to something at all times). Instead, he clicks on the radio and goes through all the stations until he finds one that plays songs from the forties.

The first time he tries it out Bucky is bent over a book on the couch, face scrunched up in concentration. The first few channels are all fuzzy, then it’s all pop music and country music, and then it’s the oldie’s but not old enough, but finally, while still randomly scrolling, the first few notes to a familiar song plays. Bucky’s head snaps up from the book, mouth parted in surprise.

Steve smiles triumphantly and turns up the volume, forgetting that they have neighbors. The corners of Bucky’s lips are curled up and it only grows when Steve starts singing along completely out of tune and with a grand bravado. Bucky doesn’t sing along, but later on, when they’re preparing dinner, Steve catches him humming to that very song.

After that, it only makes sense to always have the radio on all the time. Some songs pass with no reaction, but other times Steve will end up flitting about the apartment and singing along just to see the small smile that Bucky always wears when he does this. It’s comfortable, too, to have someone else that knows the words and might too have strong memories associated with them too.

***

One night, after they’ve eaten, Steve sits on the couch and sketches Bucky as the radio plays softly.

He’d bought a notebook in the hopes of filling it with thoughtful words like Bucky does every night, but instead he only ends up drawing. He started with the apartment, from the light glowing through the newspaper-covered windows to the chipped backsplash in the kitchen. They’re all crude and out of proportion, it being years since Steve’s done a proper drawing.

Tonight, though, he ends up watching the way Bucky distractedly bites his lips when he turns the pages of his book and reads on with rapt attention. Steve doesn’t even realize what he’s doing until he’s working out the fine details of his face and getting the pose just right. Bucky doesn’t notice, though, or maybe he does and he doesn’t care.

Either way, Steve looks him over and then, with broad sweeps of his pencil, draws him the best that he can. He thinks maybe it’s as close as he’ll ever get to eloquent words and detailed accounts of his life, like what he suspects is in Bucky’s journal.

 _A picture’s worth a thousand words_ , Steve thinks humorlessly.

Bucky’s in a grey t-shirt, the metal of his arm exposed, and Steve pays careful attention it. He remembers drawing Bucky when they were younger, Bucky always keeping the crude caricatures after he was done. This part of Bucky is new, though. So is his long hair. It’s only then that Steve realizes how long it’s really gotten, nearly down to his shoulders.

“You need a haircut,” Steve announces.

Bucky looks up, blinking a few times at Steve in confusion. “What?”

“Your hair is way too long.”

He snaps his notebook shut and stands up to rifle through the kitchen drawers for a pair of scissors. After finding a rusted-looking metal pair, he walks up to Bucky who is still sitting on his mattress, back against the wall and his book closed on his lap. Bucky looks to the scissors with a bit of caution and then nods slowly and stands.

Steve pushes one of the chairs next to the small card table to the kitchen linoleum and sits Bucky down in it.

“I thought we stopped doing this when we were twelve,” Bucky quips.

Steve ignores him. “Take off your shirt,” he tells him, and then leaves to go into the bathroom and come back with a comb that he uses to carefully go through his hair, soft dark strands slipping through his fingers. When he finishes, he places the comb down, stands so he’s facing Bucky’s face, and poises the scissors on the first strand.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Bucky asks.

It’s only then that Steve realizes just how close he is to Bucky’s face, his eyes meeting Steve’s with a worried urgency. Steve flicks back to the scissors and nods once. He makes his first cut, only about an inch of hair dropping to Bucky’s bare shoulder. But the cut alone makes Steve smile unabashed.

He continues, eyes darting back and forth between either side of his face, to make sure it’s all even before he works around his head. He cuts it so that it’s still long enough for Bucky to push behind his ears if he wants. Each cut is careful and precise, for Bucky’s sake.

“I like the long hair,” Steve offers, just to say something.

He’s still working on the hair on the back of his head, so he can’t see Bucky’s reaction, but it’s a few seconds before he finally responds with, “Yeah?”

“Definitely,” Steve says, smiling. “Really makes you look tougher.”

Bucky lets out a breathy laugh. “That’s why I keep it.”

“I knew it.”

He stands back a little, to make sure it’s still even, before deciding it is and going back to the front, his and Bucky’s eyes meeting for a second before he looks back to his hair.

He hums once and then nods his head. “I think it’s done,” he says, “but it would’ve been better if these scissors weren’t so rusted.”

It’s only a quick moment, but a look of horror flashes over Bucky’s face, his eyes dropping to the floor, breath suddenly shallow.

“What?” Steve says, worried.

“It’s nothing.”

Steve frowns at him, wishing that Bucky would let him in a little more than he does. He hopes maybe it’s better this way, that he doesn’t know all the things that happened to Bucky.

Bucky shakes the hair from himself and they both wordlessly walk to the bathroom. The light flickers on, then off, and then back on harshly, the two of them standing in front of the mirror. Bucky leans in closer, his hand combing thorough it a little and then pushing one side behind his ear.

“It looks good,” he tells Steve. “Better than I expected.”

Steve rolls his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the wall, light switches digging into his back. “Now I can never leave,” he says, “or else you’ll have to keep giving yourself bad haircuts.”

They smile at each other in the mirror. It makes Steve feel warm and content, like he really could stay in this apartment with Bucky for the rest of time. He tries not to remember that this can’t last forever. That eventually they’ll have to leave, for some reason or another, and they’ll never return to this world they live in now. The world where it’s just the two of them.

Steve’s not sure he’s ready to give that up yet.

***

The impending doom of the future mixed with constant thoughts of Bucky is enough to keep Steve in his head all day. He doesn’t even notice, one afternoon, when Bucky sits next to him on the couch and snags his notebook from him without asking.

He must take Steve’s silence as permission and opens it. It’s not until he nudges Steve and goes, “You draw me a lot,” that Steve even fully realizes what’s happening.

“There’s not exactly anyone else around,” Steve says casually, like it’s not really because of the way he’s just started drawing Bucky automatically, falling in love with the lines that make him whole.

Bucky hums and flips the pages slowly. Nearly every page has a drawing of Bucky in-between random things around the apartment he’s drawn. When he reaches the end, the pages all blank after that, he closes it and puts it back on Steve’s lap.

“You’re still a good artist,” Bucky tells him softly.

The comment makes Steve smile incredibly wide, his fingers playing with the edges of the notebook. “Thanks,” he mutters.

The radio is playing softly, but then it changes to an upbeat song that makes Bucky and Steve both instantly look at each other with bright, surprised faces.

“This _song_ ,” Steve says, laughing into his hands, the memories of a night coming back to him.

It had actually been the second time they had gotten drunk together, the two of them just as stupid when it came to moderation, or lack thereof. Steve could never forget that night, because they had sung the very song that was playing at the top of their lungs, dancing around the apartment and nearly falling into each other.

“We were so drunk that night,” Bucky muses.

“ _So_ drunk.”

There was another reason why Steve could never forget this particular night, but he hoped Bucky wouldn’t remember.

He did, though.

“You kissed me that night,” Bucky then says.

Steve had. Maybe it was stupid and reckless but he had been drunk, and that was an excuse enough. It’s not like he could’ve helped it, not when they both held onto each other so they wouldn’t fall to the floor, singing along so loudly that the neighbors had complained the next morning. Steve can’t think of another way that it could’ve happened, with the song ending and Steve impulsively leaning forwards, hands on either side of Bucky’s face.

“You kissed back,” Steve says, like he really has to defend himself.

Bucky laughs in amusement, it sounding melodic over the last chorus of the song. Steve smiles, too, and hums along as the song ends. When it finishes, the silence before the next track starts stark and prominent, Steve glances up to Bucky, who is already looking at him. Their eye contact is nearly burning, and Steve wants to say something but he can’t.

It’s then that Bucky leans in and kisses him, lips warm and not tasting of cheap beer this time. Steve automatically responds, kissing deeper just because he can. They’re not drunk this time, and there is no excuse, but Steve feels like they don’t really need one. That it’s fine that he feels this way, like there’s a fire inside of him, because it’s different now. _They’re_ different.

Bucky pulls back, eyes instantly searching Steve’s, like he’s still unsure. Steve can’t help but to lean back in, his hand on Bucky’s chest, and kiss him again. When he pulls back this time, he’s smiling brightly, and Bucky is smirking, and Steve asks, “So, are we still having chicken for dinner?”

And maybe the future is still coming, like it always does, but at least they have this moment, or the one from the other day, or last week. That’s all him and Bucky will ever have. As long as they’re together right now, that’s all Steve needs to care about.

 

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to tell me what you think and also let me know if there are any mistakes in this since i'm fairly new to the marvel fandom. 
> 
> also, title credits go to the song by ólafur arnalds.


End file.
